but including a psu would add additional cost, wouldn't it? say compared to someone with a standard atx, they could just drop theirs in and go. i dont have numbers or research, but seems like having room for a standard sized psu would offer a lot more options for people. designing one of these is tough b/c the bigger you make it the more flexibility you have.. but then you run the risk of losing the whole idea of building an itx system in the first place

btw i had a thought while typing this. if you were to somehow manage to lift the motherboard up high enough, you could fit the optical drive underneath. so it might could serve dual purpose: psu cable management, and (maybe) reduce the overall footprint, it might not reduce it by much, but its an idea http://i48.tinypic.com/2ziar69.jpg

but including a psu would add additional cost, wouldn't it? say compared to someone with a standard atx, they could just drop theirs in and go. i dont have numbers or research, but seems like having room for a standard sized psu would offer a lot more options for people. designing one of these is tough b/c the bigger you make it the more flexibility you have.. but then you run the risk of losing the whole idea of building an itx system in the first place

btw i had a thought while typing this. if you were to somehow manage to lift the motherboard up high enough, you could fit the optical drive underneath. so it might could serve dual purpose: psu cable management, and (maybe) reduce the overall footprint, it might not reduce it by much, but its an idea http://i48.tinypic.com/2ziar69.jpg

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To answer some of this...

The chassis can be purchased with or without a supply. I just wanted to offer a high quality supply that was custom designed for the chassis to avoided wiring problems for the builder. It is also quiet, powerful, runs cool, tested/verified to work, has 3yr warranty, and reasonably priced. The supply would be around $80-90 retail. I'm still working with the factory though and they are not ready yet. I've only recieved a test sample for...testing. It passed with great results. Their first two test samples (of other models) ran hot and failed miserably.

The Newegg link is TFX. The Shuttle link is a Flex-ATX. A Flex-ATX was the supply used in the very first (of 6) concept prototypes. Is was rejected due to the fan noise. TFX was rejected because it's a bit of an odd-ball size. SFX (aka, Micro-ATX) was small, more common, and had higher power availability. ATX was rejected due to the size.

Lifting the motherboard will decrease the clearance between the top of the CPU and the top of the chassis. This limits the number of coolers that fit. All the area unused under the board (board area - optical area) becomes unusable. It's better suited for airflow and coolers. The only advantage to relocating the optical would be room for another 2.5" drive (with alot of wasted area around it). I played with many layout options before the first concept proto was built. Even then, it took 6 of those to decied on one that fit the requirements listed below...

A chassis may seem like a simple enough product, which is true for the most part, but a SFF chassis takes ALOT of thought. A designer has to balance performance, cooling, noise, expandability, upgradability, options to suit the widest range of users, room for future models without complete redesign, esthetics, and finally cost. Once the layout was finalized in the concept prototypes, I proceeded to have parts machined that are as close to the production model as they can be. One-off maching is big bucks but it allowed me to verify the design before I pull the trigger on production runs. I mentioned it awhile ago but one of the biggest pain in the ass things to design was the power button. Cost was the biggest issue. Injection molding is extremely expensive in small (read: less then 1,000,000) quantities. Just one mold, for something as simple as the little plastic holder for switch, is $1000s. Say a mold is $5000. Say the plastic for one part is $.05. That amounts to $5.25 a piece for 1000pcs. It's .055 a part if I get 1,000,000pcs. Now do that for every part in the chassis. The unfortunate reality is the $55,000 investment for ONE part. I'm in the middle of all this cost balancing. That's what's causing the delay. That and Sweeta has the slowest comunications of all the suppliers.

oh, well lifting the motherboard idea was just something i wondered about if you decided to raise the total height of the case. say you increased the height of the case by a half inch, and you raised the mobo a half inch, the clearance would be the same as previous seems like the dimensions are pretty set though.

does not look as pretty but, at least in my household, we hardly turn our machines on or off (most of the time just hibernate). evaluating the use vs. cost of a button.. seems expensive for such little use.

oh, well lifting the motherboard idea was just something i wondered about if you decided to raise the total height of the case. say you increased the height of the case by a half inch, and you raised the mobo a half inch, the clearance would be the same as previous seems like the dimensions are pretty set though.

does not look as pretty but, at least in my household, we hardly turn our machines on or off (most of the time just hibernate). evaluating the use vs. cost of a button.. seems expensive for such little use.

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Thanks but I think the power button is sorted out but my mold is based off 'X' switch using 'Y' buttons except that the seller of those buttons hasn't got back to me with MOQs. If they dont, the people molding my switch retainers can machine the buttons into the same mold. Either way the design is still the same.

There's delays but my other quote for the faceplates is back and it's less then 1/2 of the first quote. Found a great place for anodizing as well. All of the aluminum pieces will be refinished after machining then anodized by the same company so they will all have the same finish and color. Now I need to figure out if I want to drop ship 2000lbs of aluminum extrusions or do them a batch at a time. I'll most likely do batches. I'm going to need a bigger warehouse. o.o"

It is summer but it's not done yet. I leased a 1200sqft building at the begining of the year so I have to play catch up for a little bit. Business is good though. The first month we made profit. That's a good thing. If you can break even in America, your a successful business. lol

I opened a computer store a few months back. It has been profitable since the doors opened. I needed the space to store parts anyways. I can't exactly shove 2000lbs of aluminum in my bedroom closet. The "breaking even" comment was scarcastic towards the poor American economy. As if statistically "breaking even" was a "successful business".

I'm only one guy over here making this case in my spare time. If I had a team of designers and a marketing department it would have been done months ago. It's very hard for a "nobody" to walk into a shop and get parts quotes. Most of the shops want annual production figures of very large volumes of parts. Sure I could have any job shop pop out a dozen cases but you won't want to pay $500 for it?

If you're not completely set with your power switch choice, how about setting up a touch sensor so you can just tap the front of the case to turn it on, and turn it off in the OS (so you don't accidentally tap your computer and lose all of your work)? They're not unreasonably expensive (off the shelf touch lamp sensors are $5) and it would be an interesting way to set your case apart from the rest of the pack.

If you're not completely set with your power switch choice, how about setting up a touch sensor so you can just tap the front of the case to turn it on, and turn it off in the OS (so you don't accidentally tap your computer and lose all of your work)? They're not unreasonably expensive (off the shelf touch lamp sensors are $5) and it would be an interesting way to set your case apart from the rest of the pack.

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Touch lamp sensors would not be off-the-shelf compatable with a PC. I'd have to gut the electronics from it and modify it for PC use. I'm paying 1/2 that for a PC snap switch with wiring and connectors, button (molded), and mount (molded).

i'm curious, do you plan on having some front usb/audio ports?
also, about the pci-e riser, will it be 3.0 compliant? i dont know much about risers. are they all basically the same? or are some better than others?

i'm curious, do you plan on having some front usb/audio ports?
also, about the pci-e riser, will it be 3.0 compliant? i dont know much about risers. are they all basically the same? or are some better than others?

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I will be adding front USB 3.0 in v2 of the chassis. The current design doesn't have any front ports. If I can source a USB cable before the faceplates are produced I'll add it. As for risers... Some are better then others. I've seen PCB risers that lack any ground plane in the PCB layers and others with extra filter caps on the riser itself. The ribbon style risers gave me problems but have worked for others. The riser I'm using is short with a ground plane and caps. I'm not sure what the PCIe standard allows for in terms of riser cards.

The chassis design lets me do just about anything I want to the faceplate. Any combination of LCD, Audio, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, or even firewire can be easily placed on front. If the graphics card isn't used, a 3.5" removable drive could even be made to fit.

I will be adding front USB 3.0 in v2 of the chassis. The current design doesn't have any front ports. If I can source a USB cable before the faceplates are produced I'll add it. As for risers... Some are better then others. I've seen PCB risers that lack any ground plane in the PCB layers and others with extra filter caps on the riser itself. The ribbon style risers gave me problems but have worked for others. The riser I'm using is short with a ground plane and caps. I'm not sure what the PCIe standard allows for in terms of riser cards.

about the bracket, i had read some previous replies about the experience with ribbon cables, so i was starting to rule those out for myself. i originally had this weird concept where i would make a case but have the video card kind of fold back and sit above the motherboard (was using an h100 so heatsink clearance was no issue). it all hinged on using a ribbon cable, but after reading your comments i dont think that idea would work very well because of those problems you described. on the other hand i dont know too much about the brackets either. in the end it seems like your concept is the closest to what i had been planning. so if/when you sell them i might end up buying one of your cases and seeing about modifying it.

ps. i forgot to ask this earlier but the space you have for optical drive, does it allow for 3.5 inch size or restricted to those laptop drives? and about "Custom solid copper CPU cooler. (Will not support stock or aftermarket coolers)" ...is this still in the works too?

about the bracket, i had read some previous replies about the experience with ribbon cables, so i was starting to rule those out for myself. i originally had this weird concept where i would make a case but have the video card kind of fold back and sit above the motherboard (was using an h100 so heatsink clearance was no issue). it all hinged on using a ribbon cable, but after reading your comments i dont think that idea would work very well because of those problems you described. on the other hand i dont know too much about the brackets either. in the end it seems like your concept is the closest to what i had been planning. so if/when you sell them i might end up buying one of your cases and seeing about modifying it.

ps. i forgot to ask this earlier but the space you have for optical drive, does it allow for 3.5 inch size or restricted to those laptop drives? and about "Custom solid copper CPU cooler. (Will not support stock or aftermarket coolers)" ...is this still in the works too?

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That front panel board is a bit pricy.

Ribbon risers work if you shield them with aluminum tape.

The optical drive is a slot-load slim (laptop) SATA drive. The 2.5" HDD/SSD mounts below the optical drive. I think you mean 5.25"? Not in this little box. lol

The case will work with OEM coolers (and quite a few of the slim aftermarket coolers including the 120mm ones) IF the top cover is vented. The cable management gets tight with 120mm coolers because -someone- decided ITX boards were going to relocate the SATA ports to the other corner of the board. Idiots. I have to order longer SATA cables now and they have to be routed to the other end of the board using stick-on cable ties or something of that nature.

yeah sorry 5.25 lol
i havent gone back and read it, but i thought from what you wrote earlier, that a ribbon kind of worked but it did not seem too reliable. i'd take reliability any day, so i'm not sure i'd take the chance on halfway maybe working on my near $500 video card i just bought. unless i can find one that is guaranteed to work
however one of the worries i have with the other type bracket is it faces the card downward. i'm curious about if being so close to the bottom, that would 'starve' it for cooler air. i think that is probably how i was considering the ribbon, that i'd be able to flip the card over and have the fans on the videocard near the top of the case with little airflow restrictions as opposed to the having it cramped near the bottom.

one of the worries i have with the other type bracket is it faces the card downward. i'm curious about if being so close to the bottom, that would 'starve' it for cooler air. i think that is probably how i was considering the ribbon, that i'd be able to flip the card over and have the fans on the videocard near the top of the case with little airflow restrictions as opposed to the having it cramped near the bottom.

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There's a .200" gap between the removable component tray and the bottom of the chassis. It's wider then the gap between two cards in an SLI configuration. Blowers are able to draw air in through a narrow gap unlike axial fans. The chassis also sits on feet which allow me to vent the bottom cover if I wanted to but it wasn't necessary. The space between the tray and the bottom cover has vent slits in the rear (not show in the pics). A GPU will run cooler this way then with it's blower's inlet facing into the chassis where it can draw in warmer air. Even if the chassis is only 10c warmer inside, that's a 10c rise in GPU temp -or- the GPU fan will have to run faster to maintain it. Even with some overclocking, I didn't have any issues with heat. If I did, I'd still be working on the design.